He inclined his head. “And a joyous holiday to you and yours, Amanda.”
She smiled and made for the door…
“Amanda?” he called out as she pressed the door handle.
She turned back, a question in her eyes.
“I’d mention one more thing.”
She tipped her head. “What is it, Weston?”
He drained the contents of his glass. “I paid a visit to the Earl of Sinclair earlier this morning. I’m to wed Lady Patrina.” He bit back a grin. “Again, a Happy Christmas.”
CHAPTER 13
A howling wind beat angrily against the frosted windowpane of the parlor. Patrina pulled her knees close to her chest. The roaring fire ablaze in the metal hearth bathed the late afternoon winter-darkened sky in shadows. She fanned the pages of The Bride of Lammermoor on her lap and stared out at the rapidly falling snowflakes.
She was to be wed. To a gentleman she’d met but six days ago. She expected the idea should terrify her, yet an absolute sense of rightness filled her at the decision. Oh, she’d told herself marriage to the marquess would fill her empty life. She’d have the children she’d given up hope of having after the scandal with Albert. She’d have a home of her own.
She set the book down on the windowseat. With his somberness and cool logic, Weston would never have been the gentleman she’d dreamed of with her girlish hopes. With a woman’s eyes and a woman’s heart, however, she appreciated that he didn’t fill her ears with platitudes. Weston represented the logical choice of a woman staring down the life of a spinster. Yet, if marriage to him was based on little more than logic, why did marriage to Weston stir a rapid beating of her heart in ways Albert had never managed?
Patrina began to quietly sing While Shepherds Quietly Watched Their Flocks at Night. She trailed the tip of her finger over the cold glass and marked MofB in the frost, testing the letters of her soon to be title and then embarrassed by such a flight of fancy, hastily scratched out the slight carving.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. “What is it, Jonathan? If you’ve come to try and convince me not to wed him, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,” she said drolly.
“The Marquess of Beaufort to see—”
Patrina’s leg jerked reflexively and she knocked her book over. Heat blazed through her body as she made to rise. Except she forgot her legs were otherwise awkwardly covered by her skirts. She stumbled and pitched forward. Weston swept across the room in three long strides and caught her in his arms. The air left her lungs on a soft, whispery gasp. She swallowed hard as she took in the handful of inches between her head and the floor.
“Is there anything else you’ll require, my lady?” Smith boomed, seeming wholly un-phased by one of the Tidemore girls nearly toppling onto her face before a powerful nobleman.
Weston grinned down at her. Words. She tipped her head, studying him in all his golden beauty. She really required a handful of proper words, at the moment.
“Thank you, perhaps?” he supplied on a quiet whisper.
She wrinkled her brow. Why in thunderation was he thanking her?
“The butler. I was suggesting you thank the butler.” He winked.
“Er, right.” Her cheeks warmed. “Thank you, Smith. That will be all.”
As the old servant left, his mumbled words carried into the parlor. “Unfortunate the manner in which everyone seems to be falling.”
Patrina stared up at the marquess. She really should insist he set her away, yet her body burned from the point at which he touched her, inspired all manner of fluttery sensations in her belly she could neither identify, nor care to. It was enough he still held her…and she wanted him to continue doing so.
* * *
He really should set her back on her feet. He really should do all manner of things that were appropriate, but instead he was besieged with an unholy desire to take her in his arms and kiss her red, bow-shaped lips until she was moaning with need for him. Then the tip of her pink tongue darted out and touched her lips. He groaned.
Her brow furrowed. “Are you all right?”
“Quite,” A lie. His reply came harsher than he intended. He battled his desire for this small slip of a young lady. Then, he recalled the words she’d uttered mere moments ago.
Her eyes formed wide circles in her face. “Oh. Dear.” Her gaze skittered away from his. “I suppose you heard the words I inadvertently spoke aloud.”
“Indeed,” he drawled. It was hard to hate her brother for saying what Weston already knew to be truth. Lady Patrina deserved more than a cool, emotionless entanglement.
“He was merely…”
He quirked an eyebrow.
She sighed. “Trying to convince me not to wed you,” she finished.
His heart thumped painfully in his chest. He straightened and set Patrina back on her feet. “Oh?” He affected an attitude of indifference. “And what have you decided, my lady?” He’d originally offered her marriage to provide his children a mother, and yet if that was all he wanted of Patrina, then why this cloying panic that she’d wisely changed her mind?
She touched his cheek. The delicate caress a blend of boldness and innocence. “I made my decision when I accepted your offer, Weston.” Again his body thrummed with awareness of her. “I’ll not change my mind.”
At the resoluteness of her words, the vise-like pressure in his chest lessened. He raised her knuckles to his lips, this woman who with each meeting became increasingly important to him. He supposed the idea of it should terrify him. Oddly, it didn’t. Oddly, this felt right. They felt right. He cleared his throat. “You sing,” he said, the statement surprising the both of them.
She tipped her head at the abrupt shift in discussion.
He gestured lamely toward the pianoforte.
“Often.” She waggled an eyebrow. “And poorly.”
“Not at all,” he insisted with the familiar ease he’d used before Cordelia had turned him bitter.
She snorted. “That is quite kind of you, but I’ve no delusions about my capabilities.” She strolled over to her pianoforte and dusted her fingers along the keys. “I merely do it for the enjoyment it brings me. My one guilty pleasure, if you will.”
He closed the distance between them and placed his palms on the top of the instrument. “And muscadine ices,” he reminded her.
“Yes, of course. And muscadine ices.”
They shared a smile. Something passed between them. A somberness settled in the delicate plains of Patrina’s face. Her brown-eyed gaze searched his. He took a step toward her, truly appreciating for the first time the extent of her beauty. Had he ever truly considered her drab? Her eyes sparked with intelligence and her trim waist and thick black hair conjured all manner of forbidden thoughts, most of which involved Weston and Patrina in bed and her long tresses wrapped about them like a silken curtain.
“What is it?” She touched a hand to her head, displacing a black curl. “Is there something wrong?”
He swallowed hard. There was everything wrong. He desired her. Weston claimed the single strand and took it between his thumb and forefinger. He rubbed the silken strand, and then raised it to his nose, inhaling deep. Lavender filled his senses, a bright contrast to the dark, storming winter day.